Arguments:  Analyzing Issues

Contents

• Defining Issue Analysis
• A Vocabulary for Issue Analysis
• Identifying Issues in Argument₂
• Using Stock Issues
• Using Issues to Evaluate Support

Defining Issue Analysis

Issue

• Campbell and Huxman: "a fundamental point in dispute, a question crucial in making a decision, choosing a stance, or selecting a course of action."
• In strategic discourse, an issue is a point on which an audience will require support to give their agreement to a claim. Discovering issues is a matter of understanding what the audience will require as support given the claim that you are making.
• Issues are critical in argument₂. Issues define the points of dispute between those having the argument about a proposition. You should be able to extract the issues from the argument₂
• Issues are best formed as questions which focus on the questions to be answered in argument₂. Thus: Are there sufficient parking spaces on campus?
• Most often used to analyze support for a thesis

Issue Analysis

• To evaluate the sufficiency of support for an claim
• Two kinds of evaluation
  • logical sufficiency: Has the support been provided to prove the claim?
  • audience sufficiency:  Have the obstacles to the audience's believing the claim been removed?

A Vocabulary for Issue Analysis

• Issues: Points of Dispute.
• Potential Issues: A set of possible points on which an audience might doubt a claim. Notice that potential issues come not from audience analysis but from analysis of the claim. They are best generated by carefully studying the claim and dividing it into the things it asserts. You can also use stock issues to identify potential issues.
• Stock Issues: A standard set of potential issues that you can apply to a particular type of claim. One way of generating potential issues is to (1) identify the claim, then (2) use the stock issues to give you a list.
• Actual Issues: Potential issues that with a particular audience require support. Notice that audience analysis applied to potential issues is what identifies actual issues for you.

Identifying Issues in Argument₂

When you have arguments for and against a proposition or claim, you can identify the arguments on which the outcome of the argument turns.

1. Determine the proposition at risk in the argument₂
2. Catalog the points of dispute between the proponent and respondent in the argument₂ . These are actual issues.
   1. Catalog the claims made by the proponent of the proposition in argument₁ supporting the proposition. These are potential issues.
   2. Identify the claims of the proponent on which the respondent to the argument agrees with the proponent or does not address.  These are NOT actual issues.
   3. Identity the claims of the proponent to which the respondent objects.  These ARE actual issues.
   4. Catalog the claims of the argument₁ presented by the respondent and not initially addressed by the proponent.  These are potential issues.
   5. Identify the claims of the respondent on which the proponent to the argument agrees with the respondent or does not address.  These are NOT actual issues.
   6. Identity the claims of the respondent to which the proponent objects.  These ARE actual issues.
3. You are now able to evaluate the argument₁ of proponent and respondent on the actual issues using logical or audience analysis.

Using Stock Issues

• A standard set of issues which generally can be asked on a type of claim
• Example: on policy (See Campbell and Huxman)
• Is there a compelling need to change the current policy?
• Is there an alternative policy?
• Is the alternative policy practical and beneficial?
• Example 2: on judgement:
  • What is a proper criterion (or definition) for success (or some other evaluative word)?
  • Does the thing we are evaluating fulfill that criterion?

Using Issues to Evaluate Support

1. Isolate the thesis: The thesis is the main claim of the speech. You learned to do this above
2. Determine the potential issues in the thesis: Ask: What are the possible points of dispute on which acceptance of the claim depends? The best way to do this is simply to ask yourself how you might go about denying your claim. But stock issues are another way of identifying potential issues.
3. Use audience analysis to locate the actual issues with a particular audience: Which of the issues will the speaker need to support with this particular audience?
4. Evaluate the speaker's identification of issues: Compare your list of issues that require support with the claims and support offered by the speaker. If you find no claims related to your identified issues, the speaker is failing to support his/her thesis. Ask: What issues has the speaker failed to address?
5. Evaluate the argument for the speech's claims: You are now ready to evaluate the support provided for the speaker's claims. Ask: On what issues hasn't the speaker warranted his/her claim?

Study aid to test your ability to analyze issues